The present invention relates to a semiconductor storage device, especially to an SRAM (Static Random Access Memory).
Miniaturization of a transistor element is advanced with the aim of attaining a high level of integration. Accompanying with the miniaturization, manufacturing variations become large, causing significant variations in the property of the transistor element. Accompanying with the miniaturization, there is also advancement in securing reliability and lowering voltages to reduce power consumption. For this reason, there arises an issue that the write margin of an SRAM is decreased.
To this issue, a method is proposed for preventing the malfunctioning of a write operation, by setting a bit line to a negative voltage at the time of writing in order to improve the current driving capacity of an access MOS transistor of a memory cell (Patent Documents 1 and 2, Non-patent Documents 1 and 2).
Patent Document 1 discloses a method in which a boost circuit comprised of a boost capacitor and an inverter to drive it is provided in each of a bit-line pair, and the boost circuit on the side of a bit line set at a ground voltage is selected and driven.
Patent Document 2 discloses a method in which a boost circuit comprised of a boost capacitor and an inverter to drive it is coupled to each of a bit-line pair via a switch and a negative voltage is transferred by selecting a switch on the side of a bit line driven to the ground potential.
Non-patent Document 1 discloses the following method: An inverter is provided to each of bit-line pairs as a write driver circuit. Sources of two write inverters are short-circuited and coupled to a low-voltage side power source VSS via a power switch. A boost capacitor is coupled to the short-circuited sources of the write inverters. When the power switch is turned OFF, only an output node of the inverter on the side of outputting the ground voltage is floated. Then the boosted negative voltage is transmitted to a bit line via an NMOS of a write inverter which outputs the ground voltage and a Y switch.
Non-patent Document 2 discloses, with regard to a dual port SRAM, a method in which a bit line is driven to a ground voltage according to write data, then floated, and subsequently boosted to a negative voltage via a boost capacitor.